Distance based pricing?

[yorkie]

As per an earlier post - @Clip was answering a question of *how* a system could work, he wasn't suggesting it was a good idea.

It's bizarre to say he was suggesting how such as system "could work" as what was suggested turned out to be completely unworkable.

[2] If done on a revenue neutral basis it would result in a small increase to return fares, but I suspect this would indeed be small because most people aren't making single journeys nor complicated ones in a routeing sense.

No. It would not result in a "small" increase e.g Gatwick to St Pancras CBA £9.10; I can't see GTR wanting a paper single to be anything less than the PAYG single fare of £8.30, so you're nearly doubling the cost of that return journey.

The TOCs would no longer be able to charge premiums to return another day so the single fare will be based on the more expensive return fares; people who currently buy day returns are going to be heavily penalised under any move to single leg pricing in this country.

The Government could instruct the rail industry to halve the lower priced fares but that will not happen as the TOCs currently make a lot of money out of 'distress purchase' single fares priced at pennies less than a return and the Government are not going to increase subsidy to cover that shortfall. The Government wants rail fares to become less attractive, not more attractive, to reduce the burden on providing additional capacity.

So either it will not go ahead at all (due to negative press of price increases that will NOT be small) or many daytrippers will find their prices have gone up by a huge amount.

 

[Bletchleyite]

One option would be to retain day returns and outboundary day Travelcards (perhaps even all issued single-piece), but to change everything else to singles. Day returns are typically for short-distance journeys which by their very nature tend to have relatively few Permitted Routes and far less need to go out one way and back another. Whereas if you want to make a period return journey from Ormskirk to Lancaster over a weekend (for one example) you are almost certainly going to have to.

I'm not convinced that the sale of overpriced singles as "distress purchases" is going to be bringing in *that* much revenue overall. Most people buy return tickets, not singles, even where, like with a lot of Anytimes, you don't actually save any money by doing so.

But in any change there will be winners and losers. I don't agree with what seems to be your premise that you can't annoy anyone we didn't previously annoy so we have to stay where we are. It simply requires us to benefit more people than we disbenefit and to be revenue neutral.

It's a bit like people who think e-ticketing has to be 100% secure. It doesn't; it just has to be at least as secure as (=cause no more revenue loss than) bits of orange card plus have other benefits outweighing the implementation costs.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Posted only for interest, any arguments please don't yell at me, email the Czech government and tell them they've got it all wrong lol!

What you have posted is quite correct, and I have bought distance-based tickets in CZ.
However, you don't mention that ČD also has no end of additional fares which are not distance-based.
They follow the German style of Saver-type tickets in levels of about €5 (Kr 100), for both internal and international journeys.
Also all sorts of local and regional ranger-type tickets, and railcards offering various levels of discount.
There are also different open access tickets on some routes, competing with ČD.
It certainly isn't a simple distance-based system.

I was left trying to work out if Ostrava-Prague was cheaper with either:
- a distance-based ticket (flexible, with 50% senior discount), or
- a Saver First Minute CZ ticket (booked train only, 10% senior discount), or
- an All Day Network ticket (2nd class only, no senior discount)
There are also Special Offer and Super Special Offers on most key routes.
Much like the UK really!

 

[najaB]

It's bizarre to say he was suggesting how such as system "could work" as what was suggested turned out to be completely unworkable.

The mechanics of the system aren't unworkable, it's the politics.